Engineering and Architecture
Above all, we are engineers and architects – professionals licensed to design and renovate buildings and civil structures. The education of engineers and architects includes an understanding of building history, technology, construction, and detailing. As practitioners, our “culture” includes comprehensive working drawings, precise specifications, and digital construction management tools.
Material Conservation and Laboratory Testing
Conservation deals with the material, physical and chemical aspects of preserving the service life and integrity of buildings and structures. Our conservation studio serves as a resource to our clients and to the broader community of architects, preservationists, and contractors.
The studio operates our in-house materials analysis and testing laboratory. The laboratory is equipped to perform a full complement of meaningful tests on stone, slate, brick, mortar, terra cotta, stucco, concrete, plaster, metals, coatings, and painted finishes. Capabilities include determination of compressive strength, depth of carbonation, water absorption and vapor transmission, petrographic analysis, microscopic investigations, and accelerated weathering.
Material Conservation and Laboratory Test Listing (PDF) Non-Destructive Testing & Evaluation (NDT&E)
Information is the lifeblood of a successful restoration strategy. NDT&E provides critical advance intelligence about an asset's underlying construction and condition, with minimal disturbance to its fabric.
Our investigative arsenal includes an array of state-of-the-art equipment. Infrared (IR) cameras (using surface temperature variations) and electrical moisture meters and scanners (using sub-surface variations in dielectric permittivity and conductivity) provide an indication of water saturated roofs, walls, and floors. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) antennas, covermeters, and pachometers (using reflected and induced electromagnetic pulses) and sonic and ultrasonic detection tools (using reflected stress waves) indicate the presence or absence of metal (pipes, beams, rebar, cables, ties, anchors), air, and water (PVC conduit, missing grout, delaminations, voids) in concrete and masonry. Galvanometric membrane integrity mapping (GMIM), mass magnetic probes (MMP), half-cell potential probes, Schmidt rebound hammers, coating adhesion and anchor pull-out testers, borescopes, thickness gauges, and other devices are used to assess and track the health of roof systems and masonry, concrete, and steel.
NDT&E Listing (PDF) Infrastructure Asset Management
Infrastructure Asset Management is the process through which an owner monitors and maintains systems of constructed facilities, with the objective of providing the best possible service to users within the constraints of available resources.
We thrive on projects where conditions must be inventoried, and remediation accomplished at hundreds or thousands of discrete locations. We can mobilize multiple field teams to gather the data necessary to formulate solutions. Our teams carry rugged "ToughBook" computers loaded with our proprietary software. Data collection is rapid, accurate, and consistent, relying on a common language and grammar that allows the various teams to work together seamlessly.
Our integrated approach can handle massive quantities of data, and "slice and dice" that information as the project demands. It provides detailed advance estimates of restoration costs, so that the client may verify that adequate funding is in place. The system is flexible enough to accommodate last minute changes in client priorities. Further, the system encourages methodical tracking of the progress of the work, so that payments to the contractor are consistent with the work actually completed under the contract.
Structural Health Monitoring
We can monitor (either on-site or remotely) the health and behavior of a building or structure through design and installation of a network of advanced sensors and data acquisition devices.
These sensor networks provide real time feedback on important structural changes like stress and strain, excessive vibration, width of an existing crack, or inclination of a parapet. Using internet and cellular technology, salient data may be transmitted to our office for remote analysis, and if necessary, remedial action.
Our monitoring networks incorporate off the shelf components, as well as proprietary devices featuring advances in sensor, power supply and communications technology. Our patent- pending devices are compact and totally self contained. They can be easily deployed throughout a building or structure, with minimal visual impact, and minus the inconvenience of unsightly wiring.
The information provided by a monitoring network allows repairs to be made in a timely and targeted fashion.
